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Two heavy hauler trucks cross each other near the entrance to Suncor's North Steepbank Mine, located north of Fort McMurray, Alta., on Wednesday September 27, 2017. Vincent McDermott/Fort McMurray Today/Postmedia Network

After four years of tests and evaluations, Suncor Energy is deploying more than 150 automated haul trucks throughout its oilsands operations.

The trucks will arrive at mining sites during the next six years, the company announced Tuesday evening. Job cuts, particularly among equipment operators, are expected to hit the company as early as 2019.

A news release from the company says this represents "the largest investments in electric autonomous vehicles in the world."

"Suncor was the first company to transition from bucketwheel to truck and shovel operations in the early 1990s and we're continuing to be on the leading edge of oil sands technologies today," said Mark Little, chief operating officer of Suncor, in a statement.

"To be the very first company to test these systems and implement them at a commercial scale in our oil sands mining operations speaks to our long history of embracing and implementing game changing technologies," he said. "It's simply part of our DNA."

An estimate of how many Suncor jobs would be lost has yet to be made and the company said it is working with the union on how to decrease the impacts on its workforce. A phased implementation of the technology is expected to begin at the North Steepbank Mine north of Fort McMurray.

Suncor has been experimenting with automated trucks since 2013, although the company started testing how the technology behaves in work environments in 2016.

During the evaluation, heavy haulers driven by sensors and computers moved more than nine million tonnes of earth, running non-stop for 24 hours per day for a year.

The company says autonomous vehicles will mean fewer accidents, fuel and operational savings, and a smaller environmental impact. The workers themselves say it will kill thousands of jobs.

The evaluation ended during the summer of 2017. A decision on what to do with the technology was expected to be made publicly last December.

"This is probably threatening to become the single biggest hit to jobs in Canada and the most immediate. It will be devastating to the workers, their families and their communities,” said Ken Smith, a Suncor mechanic and president of Unifor Local 707A, during a July 2017 interview with the Today. The union represents represents 3,400 Suncor employees.

“The threat is here and it’s now," he said.

Suncor has defended the technology as inevitable. The technology improves safety at sites and improved performances, the company has previously said, and offers lower operational and maintenance costs.